In another thread, I’m wondering if I should get a cat. I’m moving into an apartment sometime this month and I may want to have a pet. What do I have to consider when contemplating yard-less dog ownership?
Are you okay with doing two or more long walks a day? A dog really needs the exercise. I’d get a cat, myself.
I had a dog in an apartment. It’s work, but if you’re committed, it’s doable.
So, yes, be prepared that every time the dog needs to go out, which is at least three times a day - first thing in the morning, sometime during the day, and last thing at night, you need to get your dog and your self dressed and go out. This is rain or shine, hot or cold, feeling good or feeling like death warmed over - your dog needs to be taken outside to pee or poo.
Easy in the summer - slip on flip flops, attach leash to collar - good to go. Harder in the winter with coats and boots and hats and gloves.
There will inevitably be that night when you need a good night’s sleep and your dog has the squirts and, if you’re lucky, wakes you up every hour or so for a trip outdoors.
Some dogs are more high maintenance than others. If you get a dog, consider the breed and what it was bred for and whether that breed is a good match for your energy level. You can keep a Border Collie in an apartment, but be prepared to spend a lot of time keeping that dog entertained and exercised.
I have a dog in a fairly small apartment. In addition to taking him out to evacuate four times a day, I’ll take him out for two 45 min. walks Monday through Friday. On either Saturday or Sunday, I’ll take him out for a long, typically two hour, hike or let him rough around at the dog park. Since he’s alone in the apartment for anywhere between five and six hours (if it’s any longer, I’ll hire a walker to take him out, which costs me around $25 for a three-hour hike), my living room is basically set up like a little doggy play-house, with everything important far out of reach and all his toys in a bin in a corner along with a Kong filled with peanut butter or a bully stick. I’m paying my neighbor’s daughter a buck a day to stop by after school and give him some attention, since I’m usually away until around five o’clock. I have a 16-month-old Boxer, by the way. Definitely not a traditional apartment dog. It’s hard-work and it’s a commitment, as you can probably tell.
There are smaller breeds that are better-suited for apartment living, but my experience with them is limited. In any case, a dog is going to require much more attention than a cat, which is really something I cannot emphasize enough.
While small dogs can be very high energy, and need to be walked just as much as larger dogs, be aware of how important it may be if the dog can’t walk for some reason and you have to carry it. Do not get a dog you cannot easily carry in an emergency!
I have had two or more dogs in my little apartment for 6 years now. I’ve had my older dog since I was 11 (she is 14 now) and I’ve never had a fenced yard or a dog door, so it’s not much different having her here than it was at any of the houses we lived at with my parents.
My one dog has to pee a lot, so they usually go out about 6-8 times per day total. I try to give them two longer outings per day, for a total of 30-60 minutes of brisk walking or frolicking at the park. They are getting old, and both of them seem more arthritic than usual lately, so they don’t need much (can’t take much, without being sore and gimpy the next day).
It mostly depends on the dog, how much walking you need to do. I had a hyperactive year-old foster dog for over a year, and he needed waaaaay more exercise to be bearable than my two ever have. I tried to let him RUN flat-out for a full hour each day - as many walks as I could manage to give this dog, he benefited from. Do your research on breeds and if you’re not a big jogger or walker, get an older dog of a breed that doesn’t need so much exercise or daily stimulation. Most dogs will appreciate whatever you give them, but some are miserable and obnoxious without a ton.
My wife and I are apartment dwellers and have a corgi puppy. We don’t have a yard, but thankfully our neightborhood has lots of grass patches once he’s fully housebroken. At the moment, we’re using training pads and intend to keep a “potty” on our patio for emergencies.
We’re thankful for the excuse to go for walks (although he’s still too young for walking, so he gets exercise tearing figure eights around our living room).
When it comes to apartment dogs, there seem to be three “best” fits:
Most tiny dogs can live in apartments well because they’re easy to transport around and can get exercise just trotting around a decent-sized apartment. They’re also small enough to possibly litter train if you’re inclined.
Small-to-medium sheepdogs (corgis, shelties, border collies) need exercise and stimulation, but can be content with solid walks and playing indoors with toys. Some might disagree, but I think their personalities do well in apartments, provided they get enough exercise.
Really big dogs, like mastiffs, Great Danes, and Newfoundlands can be good in apartments as long as you have enough space for them – they absolutely need daily walks or their health will suffer greatly, but they’re usually lazy and will be content napping around the apartment much of the time.
I would agree that a tiny dog who can run around an apartmnet for exercise or a very big dog that is low energy might be the best options. Also, some breeds tend to be yappier than others, so take that into consideration if you might have neighbor complaints.
Greyhounds run only for short bursts at a time, and overall are actually not very active dogs, so many people would say they make a good apartment breed too! Think about adopting a rescued racing greyhound.
Take “breed tendencies” as generalities at best…but that said, here’s one list of breeds that do well in apartments.
Also keep in mind that if you do live in an area that gets snow the sidewalks (which your dog will be walking on alot) will be salted and that salt can bother some gods. Mine (miniature dachshund) sometimes get’s the crystals stuck in his paws, which causes him to wimper and start limping. So you’ll either have to check your dog’s paws (especially if you notice anything different about how he’s walking or if he’s licking one paw in particular alot) or buy little booties for him. I have not had to buy the booties; I draw the line at getting him his own shoes. I have has to soak his paws on occasion (ironicaly in epsoms salts). Also keep a supply of plastic bags and hand santizer in your coat or purse right or next to his leasth.
I had a dog in an apartment. She’s a mixed breed, about 40 lbs. We did fine - at least 3 walks a day, plus there was a dog park nearby that we had a membership to. Absolutely fantastic. If you really want to go overboard, there’s always doggy daycare for those weeks where you know you’re going to be busy and absolutely need a tired dog to come home to.
I now live in a house that doesn’t have an enclosed fence, and have doubled my dogs. Tilly’s a jumper and Toby’s a digger - so nothing short of the Maginot Line would be able to contain them (plus my neighbor has a gorgeous white picket fence that I don’t want to destroy the sight of, but would have absolutely zero containment power over Tilly). Walking two dogs at least 3 times a day is just not an issue - it’s what I do. I now have a park nearby, and my neighborhood is extremely walkable, so we enjoy it - even in really crappy weather.
I would recommend against a small dog. They have tiny little bladders.
We have a french bulldog and live in a smallish apartment. We walk her for about 30 minutes twice a day (sometimes only once if the weather is horrible) and she has training pads that she uses regularly. Even once she gets to the point of being trained to go outside consistently she will still need to use potty pads daily simply because we don’t have a yard where we can let her out to potty at all and since we both work we don’t think it is fair to her to be expected to go 8 or 9 hours without peeing. When we go to work we either take her to doggy day camp or we have a friend come by and let her out for an hour or so during the day so she isn’t cooped up for more than 4-5 hours at a time. We also set up a dog bed in a basket next to our bed so that she can sleep near us at night and not have to be crated when we go to sleep. Lots of people in apartments crate their dogs for 8-9 hours while they are gone at work and then for 8 hours while they sleep at night but we think that is a little cruel so we try not to crate her unless it is absolutely necessary.
She has been a fabulous dog. She is pretty easy to train and all the people at doggy day camp and her obedience trainer love her because she is so sweet, but we know we got lucky that she has such a great personality. She is very attached to her people so she flips out a bit if you leave the room and she can’t see you any longer and she will chew on anything she can reach so you have to be careful to keep valuable things away from her and make sure she has plenty of toys around, but overall I’d say she is probably the best dog ever. 
Lots of great advice here and most of the high points have already been hit. I have a large, active dog and we have lived in an apartment for most of her life. What it meant was as soon as I got off work, I ran home, grabbed her, and went to exercise her, usually at a dog park. Two hours of swimming, running and ball chasing later we went home. It’s hard if the dog has a lot of energy. Nowadays it’s a lot less, but I’m still at the park two-three times a week. I recommend crate training, but really try to minimize the time the dog spends within it.
One benefit of a dog in the apartment is that it’s hard to find a better security system than a dog. At the least, the dog will usually alert on a threat before you do, and give you time to gather yourself and take whatever action is needed.
It’s also hard to find apartments that will take a renter with a large dog. Other breeds (rottweilers, pits) may be explicitly excluded on the lease.
Oh, and if you do go the dog route in an apartment, please pick up the dog crap. It’s not hard to do—I just put a plastic bag under her butt when I see the squat starting, then I pick up the bag by the corners and voila, no mess. Lots of dog owners don’t and it’s another factor why apartments won’t take dogs.
The inclusion of a bull mastiff on that list is hilarious. I mean, they are couch potatoes, but you’ll need to buy another couch to accommodate it. Just how big is your apartment? And why the bull mastiff, and not also an English mastiff, or Neapolitan? I thought all of them had pretty much the same energy levels and drive?
Surprised they don’t list racing greyhounds. I have never owned one, but I have talked to people that do, and they are evidently very docile and low-maintenance. A few walks around the neighborhood and they’re good to go. Watch out for anything that triggers their prey drive, but other than that, they’re supposed to be great apartment dogs, from what I’ve heard.
I just spent a year and a half living in an apartment in a very dense, packed-in-like sardines city. It sucked for my 45 pound whippet mix (energetic dogs). If it hadn’t been for the fact that we lucked out and had the one apartment in the building with a patio, we’d not have been able to deal with it. (What was extra great was that the patio was actually larger than the apartment!)
My next foreign trip is for three years. No way I’m not finding a house with a garden.
We have a Jack Russell in a smallish flat. I work from home, so she gets out four times a day including one walk of at least 30 mins running and playing off the lead. There are lots of parks very nearby, including a courtyard in front of the house, so exercise is actually quite easy.
But it really helps that my daughter’s 12 and gets home from school around 4. That means I often go out in the afternoon but the dog’s still not left alone for more than a couple of hours and also, if I’m ill, the dog will still get walked.
TBH, it’s been easier than I expected it to be. It was only after dogsitting in both winter and summer for more than a week each time that I was confident that we could manage a dog. That dog is actually easier because she’s a lot bigger (a retriever mix as opposed to my Jack Russell), as Munch said, little dogs have little bladders.
I’m starting to think a dog might be too much for me at this time. Still, keep going if you’re interested. I’m learning a lot, even if I may end up dogless.
Bit late to reply but I hope it helps anyone who finds this thread from a google search – I’ve just had to downsize from a house to an apartment with a collie, and he was challenging to say the least when I adopted him.
For the first 3-4 weeks in the apartment his behaviour regressed and I worried and stressed and he “acted out” by barking at everything he saw or heard, lunging at other animals on walks, running away instead of playing fetch.
Before I’d moved, we’d reached a point where we could play fetch in the park for maybe an hour a day and he didn’t run away, he was lunging much less than when I got him. That took a while but he’d been fine for a good few months with very few slip ups. After I moved it was like day one again…
Fortunately I found an article on redirection and am teaching him to pick up a toy so we can play when he hears a noise or looks out the window sees someone walk past.
I’ve increased walking time and distances and we’re just starting to work on playing fetch without him running away (his recall is bad and always has been but that’s getting a bit better too).
The conclusion: it’s really hard for the first few weeks and can be stressful. Long walks, lots of play in the apartment especially when he’s acting tense or overprotective, just doing those things has really helped my collie settle enormously and he seems pretty happy now.
Three walks a day becomes a habit fairly quickly, not looking forward to it next time I get a cold or flu though!